Infrared LED Circuitry


Required Materials


3 Infrared LEDs
resistors
wire
Perf Board

Assembly


Arrange your LED's in an isosceles triangle on the perf board. Make sure that the short side is 7 inches long. We use the 7 inches to calibrate the wiimote distances. (see the pictures below).

Read this article about basic electrical vocabulary


Basic Electricity

We wired the LEDs in series as opposed to parallel. This setup allows for us to use only one Resistor and one vex port in our circuit. We used two 33 ohm resistors in parallel to reduce the resistance to 16 ohms and increase the amount of amps it could dissipate to prevent the resistors from getting hot.

Set up your perf board by placing the LED's onto the board. Be sure the two LED's in on the short side are 7 inches apart.


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Solder the connections as seen below.

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Be sure to connect your resistors together in parallel but to the LED's in series.
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You can use a digital camera to check to see if you have made your connections properly.

If one light works they all work. Keep in mind you will not be able to see this light with the naked eye. The camera is able to show this for us!

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